Trump’s Latest Dangerous Response on North Korea

North Korea conducted a more powerful nuclear test overnight, and they claimed that the test had been a success. Predictably, the president responded with a series of ill-advised tweets. This was the worst of the bunch:

South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!

South Korea is finding that it is saddled with an irresponsible ally that indulges in a lot of provocative bluster. The latest nuclear and missile tests have not followed a period of diplomatic engagement, but have come on the heels of and in response to Trump’s own reckless threats. Incendiary rhetoric has not intimidated North Korea at all, nor was it likely to. Trump’s apparent rejection of a diplomatic resolution to the problem puts the U.S. and our regional allies in a serious bind.

Publicly berating an allied government for “appeasement” at any time is a clumsy and incompetent move. Doing so in this case risks opening up a wider rift with South Korea’s government at a time when there needs to be unity with U.S. allies in the region. The idiotic refrain that North Koreans “only understand one thing” (i.e., force) is a lazy and false assumption that hard-liners always use to discount the possibility of resolving a dispute peacefully. Instead of ratcheting up tensions further in this way, the president needs to stop making provocative statements, his officials need to repair the damage done to the relationship with Seoul, and the administration as a whole needs to accept that they are facing a serious but manageable problem in North Korea that requires a diplomatic effort coordinated with our regional allies. That can’t happen when the president is openly disparaging one of those allies and rejecting the idea of diplomatic engagement.

9 Responses to Trump’s Latest Dangerous Response on North Korea

Inasmuch as there is no military “solution” and any military action will surely turn nuclear pretty quickly, what’s the path forward? Endless bluster? Direct nuclear war on China’s border seems like a bad idea. How on earth did this become a US problem? How did the jesusites get so fixated on NK?Trump doesn’t want to let this go. Feels very dangerous….

I think in this case your critique is too narrow by focusing only on Trump’s statements. In this case I think there is no daylight between his rhetoric and the mindset of hard-liners that are running the U.S. nowadays and you should have made that point clear.

Oh but it gets better. Trump is also in the process of terminating or trying to renegotiate our Free Trade agreement with South Korea. Because at a time when we really need to strengthen allies in the area the best thing we can do is to attack them economically.

Where are the Trump apologists bleating “But…but Benghazi” now?
I see – they are busy making America great again, and cannot bother with details such as nuanced brinkmanship. Just bluster loudly and assume a tough posture.

Has anyone told Trump or Tillerson that you cannot declare bankruptcy in diplomacy, and just walk away to start again??

Perhaps Trump is trying to find a scapegoat to explain why N. Korea has performed a record number of ballistic missile tests and nuclear weapons advancement under his new, no nonsense hardline approach. It’ can’t be him, everyone who’s versed in WW2 lore knows that appeasement is always the explanation for behavior we don’t like.

I like the stubborn persistence that people on FOX, John Bolton, and NR have in trying to drag Iran into this mess. Iran hasn’t done a thing but yet again they are trying to get us into a war with them.